


Boy Division

by achillese



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Bombing, M/M, Mild Gore, Serious Injuries, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achillese/pseuds/achillese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam didn’t sign up for this. Well, technically he did, under the terms of the draft lottery, but he didn’t sign up for the horrible conditions, the showering in the rain, the unbearable heat, the jungle terrain, the rocket attacks at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boy Division

**Author's Note:**

> Michael as a soldier and Adam as a medic. Prompted by an anonymous user on Tumblr.

It was the soldier’s leg. Adam could see it even as he approached from yards away, battling through Vietnamese bramble and occasionally getting his face thwacked with a thin branch, but he wasn’t about to stop or slow down. If anything, the sight of the wounded man propelled him to walk faster. He’d break into a run, but he was worried about getting his foot caught on the undergrowth, and falling would only waste even more time. 

Adam didn’t sign up for this. Well, technically he did, under the terms of the draft lottery, but he didn’t sign up for the horrible conditions, the showering in the rain, the unbearable heat, the jungle terrain, the rocket attacks at night. It had been six days since the last time his infantry had been mortared, and Adam was always hoping that number would cross into the double digits and beyond, but today they’d been attacked. Adam and the other medics were running around the barracks like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to move the injured to safer locations, or trying to move them at all (sometimes moving them just made their injuries worse, in which case one of the medics usually waited by their side until they could get more help). 

As it was, all Adam had to arm himself with was an M-16 rifle with 14 clips of ammunition, and he wasn’t exactly trigger happy, nor was he looking to get into a shoot-out with someone, so he’d ducked around the perimeter of the cluster of barracks to see if there were any stray injured, and that was when he’d caught sight of the injured soldier lying a few yards away. 

When Adam reached the man’s side he immediately fell to both knees and looked him over. Mortared, of course. Twice, judging from the amount of shrapnel Adam could see just by glancing at the man’s bloodied chest and face. Nothing had hit him in the eyes, which was at least one thing on the positive side, but then there was the right leg, the thing Adam had noticed instantly from afar. It had been blown away completely; one of the mortars must’ve been a direct hit. There was so much blood Adam didn’t know where to begin. 

He started by looking at the dog tags around the soldier’s neck.

“Michael Milton? I’m gonna take care of you, okay?” Adam said as he began to unroll the bandages he and the other medics had to carry. “You were hit pretty bad.”

It sounded harsh, but Adam was always told never to sugarcoat these things. They were grown men, not puppies. If an injury looked bad, then say so. 

Michael Milton smiled faintly. “Really? Hadn’t noticed.”

Adam’s lip twitched. At least the guy’s sense of humor was still intact. Adam shuffled on the ground and began to make a tourniquet for Michael’s leg...or what was left of it. He had to stop the blood flow; he couldn’t worry about the shrapnel injuries right now, because compared to the missing leg, it wasn’t as important. Besides, Adam would need to pick out the shrapnel with tweezers or some other instrument that he didn’t have with him right now. 

Adam pressed on the bandage to staunch the bleeding and Michael hissed in pain.

“Sorry,” Adam said on instinct. He wasn’t used to apologizing for doing his job, but there was a first time for everything.

“Can hardly feel it,” Michael lied. He was staring straight up at the sky, flat on his back, green eyes wide. “Chest hurts though.”

“Shrapnel.”

“Figures.”

Again, Adam found his lips twitching into a smile at the soldier’s attitude. “I’m gonna stay with you until we can get help. Preferably a stretcher so we can get you to the med bay and get the shrapnel out of your body.”

“Where you from, kid?” The question, having nothing to do with their current situation, caught Adam off guard.

“Minnesota,” he said after a short pause.

“Illinois,” Michael offered. “Drafted?”

“Yeah, thanks to my birth date.”

“Which is?”

“September 29.”

Michael struggled to tilt his head and look at Adam. “No shit. So’s mine.”

Adam smiled a little. “Happy early birthday, then.”

“You too, kid.”

“My name’s Adam.”

Michael nodded and let his head loll back against the grass. From far off Adam could hear the clamor of trucks moving and men shouting, and he started to stand up to see if he could hail somebody, but suddenly Michael grabbed hold of his wrist.

“Don’t go,” Michael asked, eyes suddenly without calm. He looked afraid instead. Afraid of being alone? Afraid of dying? Adam wasn’t sure.

“I have to get help,” Adam explained. “The shrapnel’s too much for me to—”

“Please,” Michael asked again, and this time the panic reached his eyes and Adam understood: he didn’t want to die alone. But Adam didn’t want him to die at all. 

Adam straightened up on his knees and craned his neck to look, but he couldn’t see anybody heading their way; the sounds of mortars going off in the distance meant that there was more panic elsewhere. He and Michael would be safer if they just stayed put, but staying put meant Michael’s wounds would bleed more. 

Adam moved along the ground to align himself with Michael’s shoulders before he sat down again, one hand on the man’s shoulder, steadying him even though he was still on the ground. His leg (or what was left of it) was bound up tightly in the bandages, and there was nothing much left for Adam to do but wait for more help once the mortar attack stopped. He would normally keep patrolling the perimeter, looking for more injured, but he’d never seen an injury as bad as Michael’s, and in all honesty, he wanted to keep the man alive for as long as possible, if he could. If that meant literally sitting on his injured leg to keep the blood flow minimal, then damnit, he would.

Michael, apparently, didn’t like the lack of conversation between them. “How’s Minnesota this time of year?”

“Warm. Hot, actually.”

“Any of your friends overseas?”

“Most of them got drafted, yeah.”

Michael bent his arm up so he could rest his hand on top of Adam’s, still on Michael’s shoulder. Adam gave it a small squeeze of reassurance.

“Thanks for sticking with me.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Adam warned gently. “Let’s get you to the med bay first.”

Michael nodded and they fell into silence again. Adam moved back to Michael’s leg and applied more pressure, and this time he stayed there. Michael gritted his teeth against the pain, but eventually he got used to it and wiped a sheen of sweat off his forehead, smearing some blood from his hand around on his skin. 

“Hey, Adam?” Michael asked, breaking the silence again.

“Yeah?”

“...I’m not gonna die, am I?”

Adam’s head snapped up and his blue eyes met Michael’s green. Immediately, his blue eyes hardened, turning to steel.

“No. You’re not.” He put a little more pressure on the wound, as though to prove himself. “Not in this fucking place, at least.” Adam wiped some sweat off his own forehead, tilting his helmet back a little. “You’re gonna die an old grouch in a rocking chair in some godforsaken retirement home.”

“Sounds boring.” Michael was back to smiling again, his eyes shining a little.

“So boring you’ll want to rock yourself right out the window.”

Their eyes met again and they were both smiling. 

“You better promise that,” Michael said. “I’ll hold you to it. If I get out of here and I don’t end up in a retirement home in my old age I’m gonna come back for your skinny lying ass.”

“Bring it, Grandpa.”

Michael actually kicked him with his good leg and Adam laughed. 

_I’ll get him out of this place_ , Adam promised himself. _He’s not dying here._

Adam sat in silence and watched the shaky rise and fall of Michael’s chest as though willing him to keep breathing. Even when a stretcher arrived at last, the mortar attack finished, did Adam even break eye contact with Michael, and that was only so he could look down in search of Michael’s hand to hold as the medics holding the stretcher carried him to safety, Adam walking alongside it all the way.


End file.
